Augmented reality is an arrangement wherein a direct or indirect view of a real, physical environment is supplemented, or augmented, with additional, or supplementary, information. The supplementary information may relate to objects in the view of the physical environment, such that the supplementary information may provide additional information that relates to the real, physical objects in the view of the physical environment.
An example of augmented reality is where a smartphone camera is used to capture a view of a landscape, for example of a city. The view may be provided to a screen comprised in the smartphone, as in a case where a user pans the smartphone with the intent to capture a digital photograph of the landscape using the camera. Software running on the smartphone may determine at least some of the contents of the view, for example based on an orientation and location of the smartphone that may both be determined using sensor data from sensors comprised in the smartphone.
Using the orientation and location of the smartphone, the software may interlay the view of the landscape with supplementary information relating to objects that are in the view. For example, where the software relates to operating a machine, the interlaid supplementary information may relate to how the user should interact with machine controls to use the machine.
Alternatively to a smartphone, glasses comprising a transparent display may be worn by a user such that the user is enabled to look through the glasses to see the outside world, and augmented reality software may overlay on the transparent display information concerning objects in the view the user can see.
In some cars, a windscreen is used, at least partly, to convey information to the user. In this case, information relating to operating the car may be reflected to the driver's eyes via the windscreen. Where the user can see the actual physical view through the display, the view is direct, whereas where the user sees the physical view on a non-transparent display, as in the smartphone case, the view may be seen as indirect.